OF HUMAN BONDAGE (An Autobiographical Novel) - Complete Edition. Уильям Сомерсет Моэм
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Название: OF HUMAN BONDAGE (An Autobiographical Novel) - Complete Edition
Автор: Уильям Сомерсет Моэм
Издательство: Bookwire
Жанр: Языкознание
isbn: 9788027230563
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Weeks put his head on one side so that he looked like a sparrow on a perch.
"I've been trying to find that out for years. I think I'm a Unitarian."
"But that's a dissenter," said Philip.
He could not imagine why they both burst into laughter, Hayward uproariously, and Weeks with a funny chuckle.
"And in England dissenters aren't gentlemen, are they?" asked Weeks.
"Well, if you ask me point-blank, they're not," replied Philip rather crossly.
He hated being laughed at, and they laughed again.
"And will you tell me what a gentleman is?" asked Weeks.
"Oh, I don't know; everyone knows what it is."
"Are you a gentleman?"
No doubt had ever crossed Philip's mind on the subject, but he knew it was not a thing to state of oneself.
"If a man tells you he's a gentleman you can bet your boots he isn't," he retorted.
"Am I a gentleman?"
Philip's truthfulness made it difficult for him to answer, but he was naturally polite.
"Oh, well, you're different," he said. "You're American, aren't you?"
"I suppose we may take it that only Englishmen are gentlemen," said Weeks gravely.
Philip did not contradict him.
"Couldn't you give me a few more particulars?" asked Weeks.
Philip reddened, but, growing angry, did not care if he made himself ridiculous.
"I can give you plenty." He remembered his uncle's saying that it took three generations to make a gentleman: it was a companion proverb to the silk purse and the sow's ear. "First of all he's the son of a gentleman, and he's been to a public school, and to Oxford or Cambridge."
"Edinburgh wouldn't do, I suppose?" asked Weeks.
"And he talks English like a gentleman, and he wears the right sort of things, and if he's a gentleman he can always tell if another chap's a gentleman."
It seemed rather lame to Philip as he went on, but there it was: that was what he meant by the word, and everyone he had ever known had meant that too.
"It is evident to me that I am not a gentleman," said Weeks. "I don't see why you should have been so surprised because I was a dissenter."
"I don't quite know what a Unitarian is," said Philip.
Weeks in his odd way again put his head on one side: you almost expected him to twitter.
"A Unitarian very earnestly disbelieves in almost everything that anybody else believes, and he has a very lively sustaining faith in he doesn't quite know what."
"I don't see why you should make fun of me," said Philip. "I really want to know."
"My dear friend, I'm not making fun of you. I have arrived at that definition after years of great labour and the most anxious, nerve-racking study."
When Philip and Hayward got up to go, Weeks handed Philip a little book in a paper cover.
"I suppose you can read French pretty well by now. I wonder if this would amuse you."
Philip thanked him and, taking the book, looked at the title. It was
Renan's Vie de Jesus.
XXVIII
It occurred neither to Hayward nor to Weeks that the conversations which helped them to pass an idle evening were being turned over afterwards in Philip's active brain. It had never struck him before that religion was a matter upon which discussion was possible. To him it meant the Church of England, and not to believe in its tenets was a sign of wilfulness which could not fail of punishment here or hereafter. There was some doubt in his mind about the chastisement of unbelievers. It was possible that a merciful judge, reserving the flames of hell for the heathen—Mahommedans, Buddhists, and the rest—would spare Dissenters and Roman Catholics (though at the cost of how much humiliation when they were made to realise their error!), and it was also possible that He would be pitiful to those who had had no chance of learning the truth,—this was reasonable enough, though such were the activities of the Missionary Society there could not be many in this condition—but if the chance had been theirs and they had neglected it (in which category were obviously Roman Catholics and Dissenters), the punishment was sure and merited. It was clear that the miscreant was in a parlous state. Perhaps Philip had not been taught it in so many words, but certainly the impression had been given him that only members of the Church of England had any real hope of eternal happiness.
One of the things that Philip had heard definitely stated was that the unbeliever was a wicked and a vicious man; but Weeks, though he believed in hardly anything that Philip believed, led a life of Christian purity. Philip had received little kindness in his life, and he was touched by the American's desire to help him: once when a cold kept him in bed for three days, Weeks nursed him like a mother. There was neither vice nor wickedness in him, but only sincerity and loving-kindness. It was evidently possible to be virtuous and unbelieving.
Also Philip had been given to understand that people adhered to other faiths only from obstinacy or self-interest: in their hearts they knew they were false; they deliberately sought to deceive others. Now, for the sake of his German he had been accustomed on Sunday mornings to attend the Lutheran service, but when Hayward arrived he began instead to go with him to Mass. He noticed that, whereas the Protestant church was nearly empty and the congregation had a listless air, the Jesuit on the other hand was crowded and the worshippers seemed to pray with all their hearts. They had not the look of hypocrites. He was surprised at the contrast; for he knew of course that the Lutherans, whose faith was closer to that of the Church of England, on that account were nearer the truth than the Roman Catholics. Most of the men—it was largely a masculine congregation—were South Germans; and he could not help saying to himself that if he had been born in South Germany he would certainly have been a Roman Catholic. He might just as well have been born in a Roman Catholic country as in England; and in England as well in a Wesleyan, Baptist, or Methodist family as in one that fortunately belonged to the church by law established. He was a little breathless at the danger he had run. Philip was on friendly terms with the little Chinaman who sat at table with him twice each day. His name was Sung. He was always smiling, affable, and polite. It seemed strange that he should frizzle in hell merely because he was a Chinaman; but if salvation was possible whatever a man's faith was, there did not seem to be any particular advantage in belonging to the Church of England.
Philip, more puzzled than he had ever been in his life, sounded Weeks. He had to be careful, for he was very sensitive to ridicule; and the acidulous humour with which the American treated the Church of England disconcerted him. Weeks only puzzled him more. He made Philip acknowledge that those South Germans whom he saw in the Jesuit church were every bit as firmly convinced СКАЧАТЬ